


if you jump, i'll jump (we'll fall together)

by anupturnedboat



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friendship/Love, High School, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, Romantic Angst, Romantic Friendship, red cup party
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 06:09:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7032397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anupturnedboat/pseuds/anupturnedboat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It isn’t like her. But neither is wearing jeans to school or sneaking glances at Stiles Stilinski so -<br/>* * *<br/>He can handle Lydia Martin not loving him, but he can’t survive losing her friendship.</p><p>Post S5B</p>
            </blockquote>





	if you jump, i'll jump (we'll fall together)

  
1

  
It’s one of the last high school papers she’s ever going to write. She’s supposed to be forming a hypothesis about war, and rain and Hemingway’s icebergs. But the words are simply not materializing, and every time she sits down to start she finds her mind wandering. 

It isn’t like her. But neither is wearing jeans to school or sneaking glances at Stiles Stilinski so -

Homework is hard, for the first time ever.  She can blame it on missing too many assignments and tests. The meds she’s still on, wounds covered by collars and carefully arranged hair, the still shrill voices in her head, the layers of stress and fear and anxiety that have coated everything for so long now. 

Stiles would understand this.  But he’s not talking to her, _not like that_ – not anymore - and she doesn’t know how things got so awkwardly upside down between them.

“What’s wrong with you?” Malia asks dropping into the chair next to her with the leggy awkwardness that Lydia has found herself envious of.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

_But she does. Stiles came back when she was broken and bloody and all used up. Even then he’d come back, and that is something no one has ever one for her, not ever. It means something; she’s just not sure what._

Malia can be unsettling when she’s zeroing in on people, on social situations she doesn’t quite understand. Lydia is glad that Stiles is somewhere else today instead of in the chair across from her. Even though Malia and Stiles were broken up, interactions were tentative, layered with context, old wounds and new fears when they were all together.

“Hardly anyone died,” Malia continues looking her up and down for signs of whatever ailment she thinks Lydia might have. “The bad guys are dead or gone, and school is almost over forever, so you can breathe now.”

As if it were that easy. 

The bonds of friendship, _of pack_ , have strengthened over the last couple of months, but opening up to say certain deeply held things is something she still can’t do.  It isn’t just about Stiles; it is about scars that are still healing and skin that still doesn’t feel like her own. It’s about screaming into the darkness alone and knowing how hot blood is. It's about all people who have left this world to soon. It’s about knowing if you jump, you’ll probably fall.

Malia’s expectant look makes her feel squirmy. 

“You have loud thoughts.” 

Lydia slams her book closed. “Isn’t there a Lacrosse game we should be getting to?”

2

For Stiles, the future has never seemed more unclear.  As much as it is taking shape, it’s also falling apart.  He’s destined to hunker down here in Beacon Hills (which could skew pathetic or noble, he’s still on the fence about which). Scott’s pondering schools that are not in Beacon Hills.  Lydia has always been one step away from gone forever. Malia can’t wait to get the hell out of dodge, and the others are already drifting away.  It’s true, they always find their way back to each other, but that is not the same as all being together.  He’s ok with it, but when he thinks about it, he’s actually not.

Good and bad news. Coach is back, and the team is sort of playing Lacrosse again. He seriously regrets agreeing to suit up. He’s still got some nasty bruises and a gash on his chest that is taking forever to heal.  He’s not exactly gained any new and improved athletic skills in the past couple of months, which is not news to Coach, and the reason why he’s back on the bench.  It feels like he’s freshman Stiles all over again, and when he spots Lydia in the stands, it turns out he actually sort of is.

Because this is the thing that is never going to change. 

“What’re you looking at?” Scott huffs, although Stiles thinks it’s mostly an act because werewolf Scott barely breaks a sweat playing Lacrosse.  “Dude,” Scott exhales following Stiles’ line of sight.  “Just tell her.”

 The thing is he almost has, a dozen times.  In front of Deaton and Scott and her mom.  At the police station.  In the library. In a text. _Which would have been a bad idea, he knows._

But telling her how he feels is not something he can just – do.  It’s Lydia for god’s sake. And if she doesn’t feel the same way back, what they do have would break apart into a million shards of heartbreak.  He can handle Lydia Martin not loving him, but he can’t survive losing her friendship.

“Ten-year plan,” he says instead.  “Plenty of time for us to get on the same page.”

Scott sighs and shakes his head, looks at him with something that is a cross between pity and resignation. “Wouldn’t it be better to be on the same page now?”

It would. Or course it freaking would.  He momentarily thinks about that one kiss; _locker room floor, sunlight, the crash and bang of his heart regaining its pace_. It had to have meant something; he’s just not sure what. When Stiles’s eyes drift back over, Lydia is looking at him in that way that makes him feel pinned to the wall.  Fuck.  Maybe he should just tell her.

3

“You should just tell him,” Malia says before sucking on a lime.

Lydia’s heart stops. This is so not a conversation she is ready to have. And how the fuck does Malia know how much Stiles has taken over all of her thoughts lately? “You’re doing it wrong,” Lydia scowls instead, pouring another shot for them both.

Malia rolls her eyes and looks over her shoulder where Scott, Stiles, and Liam are tugging the remote from each other’s hands and arguing about how to get the music to play from the fancy sound system her mother had had installed.

It takes all of Lydia’s self-control not to see what the hell Stiles is up too. There’re two weeks of school left, and there is this weird pressure sitting on her chest. Time is running short, and it is making her think all kinds of crazy things. That is all it is.

Besides, Stiles doesn’t think about winter formals, or Field’s medals anymore.

She licks the point where her thumb and finger meet. Malia does the same, and Lydia slides the salt shaker towards her with a nod.

Lydia already feels tipsy, Malia isn’t, which isn’t fair, _but thanks for playing_ she thinks as they both take a wedge of lime.

“I don’t mind,” Malia says, licking salt from her hand. “I mean I do. I think it’s going to hurt more than I’ve planned for, but maybe this is what was always supposed to happen. I didn’t break up with him because of you. In case that is what you are thinking.”

Lydia quickly downs her shot and blames the sting of alcohol and the sour of lime for the way her eyes tear up.

The thing is, she’s been feeling this tug towards Stiles for so long, that maybe Malia’s got a point.  But it’s still an awkward conversation to have. It doesn’t help that Malia has this expectant look on her face.

“He used to have a crush on me. Before he even knew me,” Lydia says tightly, her heart pounding her chest. But she’s not that girl anymore, _and that’s the story of how she and Stiles traded crushes_. “It was just a natural occurrence of hormones and dopamine. He grew out of it,” she finishes flippantly, hoping the ridiculous crash bang of her heart isn’t betraying her.

Malia frowns at her. “Lydia, you aren’t nearly as smart as everyone thinks you are,” she finally says before swiping the bottle of tequila and making her way through the crowd of kids that have suddenly appeared in Lydia’s living room.

 

4

There is another universe where there are no werewolves, no dread doctors - no monsters at all.  Their friends don’t die, and every step isn’t filled with guilt or terror or confusion.

At least that is a theory his brain is twisting and untwisting the closer they get to graduation. _T-minus two weeks,_ he thinks to himself.  Then everything changes, no matter what universe he’s in.

If that other universe did exist, he imagines it would look a lot like tonight.  What starts out as a small gathering is now a full blown party.  It’s all loud music, and beer, and shouted conversations and people he doesn’t know. It’s so normal it’s almost surreal. There are actual people from school willing to put their lives at risk by hanging out with them.  He thinks it might have something to do with all of those kids seeing superhero werewolf Scott in action a couple of weeks ago.  Turns out girls love shit like that.

Unless those girls are Lydia. 

They haven’t talked about what happened at Eichen.  It’s not that he’s expecting anything. They have loads of other things they never talk about, but the way she had looked at him had felt so full of possibilities, even in the shadows of the clinic. And for a moment, he’d felt like the guy who gets the girl. But he doesn’t.  He doesn’t even get to talk to that girl without it being awkward.

And now, she’s back to mostly freezing him out, and hanging out with kids much cooler than him. 

Scott gives him a knowing look across the room, but he’s not up for terrifying true love confessions tonight.  He lifts his beer to his lips and drinks and tries to ignore Lydia’s ridiculously short skirt.

For a while it works, he and Scott get to hang, and it’s almost like old times.  But it’s not. And he’s not that Stiles anymore.  Everything has changed, and will change again.  It’s giving him mad anxiety.  He knows his way around Lydia’s house, which makes it easy to slip upstairs for some quiet.

“Stiles?” Her voice startles him out of his thoughts, and he jumps, backpedaling into a fancy glass table. The vase on top shudders and he clumsily holds it in place before it can topple over. “Jesus, shit, sorry,” he splutters uselessly.

She waits for him to get his shit together in the darkened doorway of her bedroom, barefoot and her lips set in an indecipherable line.

“Shit,” he says again, uncomfortable now that there aren’t a million people around them. There was a time when they could have actual conversations without him feeling like he was on the verge of falling off a cliff.  And sometimes, when it came to life or death situations, they had no problem hanging on, holding tight.  But, this, - this uncertainty, was something that left him incapable of controlling his own limbs, his brain. He was acutely aware that there were a thousand ways to mess things up when it came to Lydia Martin.

“Are you drunk?" she asks, swaying a little in the doorway.

“Not drunk,” he lies.  “Are you?”

“I don’t get drunk,” she retorts haughtily, but he can tell she’s at least tipsy.  He hasn’t seen her this unguarded in a long time. He wants to tell her that she can tell him anything. _Everything_. That she is beautiful in shadows, and sunlight, and especially when she is looking at him like this.

Then he remembers he is Stiles Stilinski, and the sentiment deflates and escapes his brain like always.

“Then what are you doing hiding up here?” he asks waggling his eyebrows at her conspiratorially. He means in jokingly, but it turns out the joke is on him.

Lydia doesn’t say anything, she’s watching him from a darkened doorway, loud music seeping up the stairway, and a thousand thoughts swirling in the air around them like a pulse.

“Lydia?” he asks worriedly ( _has something happened, who is dead, is the world ending again?_ ) moving closer.  And it doesn’t matter what universe they’re in; he’s thinks he’s always going to want to move closer.

“Waiting for you to make a move,” she finally says so matter-of- factly that the words don’t actually make sense.

“Right, of course-” he starts, and then his brain promptly fizzes out.

“Wait, wha-”

“the hell?” Lydia finishes, but she’s not looking at him anymore.

“Oh my god, is this finally happening? Mason blurts out excitedly, his hands flailing between them.

If there was an award for the worst timing, Stiles thinks, his brain still reeling, and _oh, this is what falling actually feels like._

“Fuck, sorry,” Liam mumbles although there is a shit eating grin on his face.

“No one is allowed up here,” Lydia barks at the trio, moving away from Stiles, shooing them back down the stairs.

“Except Stiles?” Corey smirks before hurriedly backing down as Lydia stomps towards them.

“It’s my party, I guess I should get back to it,” she sighs stepping back into her heels without looking at him, the spell broken.

 

  
5

_Hemingway’s iceberg theory advocates a deeper meaning through omission.  That is, what is not obvious on the surface should be implicit in the storytelling._

Mr. Banks had circled those lines and written a large A in red on her AP English paper. Although she was used to getting better than average grades, English, and Hemingway had never been her forte.  Writing out thoughts, instead of equations had never come easy.

If last night were any indication, neither was saying them out loud. Stiles had disappeared so quickly and completely that embarrassment still burned it’s way through her. She can and will blame it on the Tequila and hope that Stiles will never bring it up again. It will be just one more secret between them.

Her mother will be home in a few hours, and while she has always been fairly lenient when it came to Lydia’s parties, she will certainly shit a brick if she sees this mess.  Lydia sighs, pulling her hair up into a high ponytail and rolls up the sleeves of her stretched out sweatshirt.

She is humming along to a Matt and Kim song and scooping up red cups when the doorbell rings. She knows it’s Stiles before her bare feet hit the foyer before she opens the door.

He looks like he’s been up all night. Worry flares in her chest, pushes the air out of her lungs because in Beacon Hills anything can happen - and it’s almost always bad. She reaches out to touch him, remembers that things are still awkward between them, bites her lip instead.

“Stiles? What’s wrong?”

“Do you have feelings for me?”

There's no air, and it feels like she's free falling. She is going to lie for the sake of their friendship, for the sake of her dignity.

He watches her carefully, daring her to answer.

He's always worn his heart on his sleeve but she doesn't and this is excruciatingly difficult.

_She should lie, she should lie, she should lie._

“Yes,” she admits exhaling like it hurts.

“Yes?” he questions hoarsely. He's gone completely still. Except for his fisted hands opening and closing.

She can't look at him, wraps her arms around herself. This is going to destroy their already fragile awkward mess of a friendship.

"Lydia are you-" he starts, “You are going to need to say that again. Because I'm not sure, I heard you correctly. And I ah - I need to be sure.”

“Yes, you idiot,” she says squaring her shoulders.

“Yes?” He questions disbelievingly.

And it’s clear that that it’s not what he’s expecting (or wanting) to hear. _And fuck, this was a mistake._ "Stiles," she pleads, "I know that being too late is being too late. But - "

_But she’s never held anyone’s hands so tightly before, and that has to mean something.  Even if it is too late._

He nods like he’s heard the thoughts swirling around in her head. He steps forward and reaches for her hips his fingers digging into her skin, pulling her close.

She clutches the zippered front of his red hoodie. Her heart is doing that ridiculous thing where it is beating so hard that she can hear it in her ears.

They stand breathing each other in.

“No such thing as too late,” he mumbles, his lips already on hers.


End file.
